From: Rohesia Hamilton Metcalfe (email suppressed)
Date: Wed Feb 18 2004 - 11:40:09 PST
As much as I appreciated Shelly's posts, I enjoyed
reading the thoughts of the men who've responded. I
would have liked hearing from other women filmmakers
as well, but I think having a discussion with
measured, thoughtful input is constructive, no matter
where the input comes from.
Slightly to the side of it all, but related: I had an
experience at the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon once
which I found interesting. I've forgotten the exact
context of the show, but it was a large show of
contemporary work and I think the artists were
probably local to some degree (perhaps all emerging
European artists, maybe even all Portuguese). Despite
the large number of works, not one of them was by an
artist known to me, so my impressions had none of the
filtering that fame can bring. All but one of the
works (an installation) were by men. I found the
installation piece seriously interesting and full of
resonance, but every single one of the other works
(mostly paintings, but I hardly think that a reason in
itself, as I love painting as a medium) left me
completely unmoved -- either emotionally,
aesthetically or intellectually.
It may have just been a weak show, I realize that.
There may be men who saw it who had a similar reaction
to mine. And it's not as if there isn't a lot of work
by male artists that I like, because there is. But it
did make me think about the invisibility of bias and
preconditioning. I have a feeling I've worked harder
to appreciate work by artists whose work I don't
immediately like when I've "heard things about them".
I think it's a given that all curators have artistic
biases to some extent and I think ensuring diversity
among curators is a helpful accommodation of this
reality.
- Rohesia
--- "Ed Halter @ NYUFF" <email suppressed> wrote:
> the discussion turns into a whole bunch
> of dudes going at each
> other on the topic the exclusion/marginalization of
> women, with about one or
> two women actually joining in the discussion...
=====
Rohesia Hamilton Metalfe
http://www.panix.com/~hamiltro
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